شواهد بین المللی در مورد چگونگی نابرابری درآمدی و تاثیر نواقص بازار اعتباری بر نرخ پس انداز خصوصی

This paper empirically examines the hypothesis that income distribution exerts an independent effect on private saving rates across countries, and tests particular channels for income inequality to affect private saving rates. Cross-sectional and panel regression results show that inequality has a robust, positive effect on private saving rates that depends on financial market development and credit available to the private sector. The paper, thus, identifies credit market imperfections as the likely reason for the inequality–private saving link. The data provide no evidence supporting a subsistence channel for inequality to affect private saving as suggested by nonhomothetic utility functions.

This paper empirically examines the hypothesis that income distribution exerts an independent effect on private saving rates in the cross-country data. This research is motivated by the lack of a clear-cut relationship between saving rates, income inequality, and growth rates in the macroeconomics and development literature. The distribution of income has recently received much theoretical and empirical attention as some papers estimated a negative, reduced-form effect of income inequality on investment and growth rates Alesina and Perotti, 1996, Alesina and Rodrik, 1994 and Perotti, 1996. These results coincide with the East Asian “miracle” countries, which achieved high growth rates with high saving rates and low levels of initial inequality relative to other countries at similar income levels. A standard prediction of growth models is that higher saving is necessary for higher growth, either temporarily in the transition to a new steady state in the Solow model or permanently in endogenous growth models. This relationship between saving and growth implies an a priori negative correlation between income inequality and saving rates if in fact inequality reduces growth (and investment) rates.1 A puzzle exists because of the strong tradition in the development literature that income inequality has a positive effect on saving rates and growth Lewis, 1954 and Kaldor, 1957.2 Recent empirical evidence has supported this view, as Cook (1995) estimated a positive effect of inequality on saving rates in developing countries, and Forbes (1997) found a positive effect of inequality on growth in an industrial and developing country sample. In practice, saving, investment, and growth rates are highly correlated in the data, but the direction of causality is unclear and simultaneity is likely — the so-called “virtuous circle” between saving and growth. Despite these conflicting predictions and a wealth of theoretical models, relatively little empirical work has been done on income distribution and saving. This is largely the result of two issues. The first is the lack of consistently defined and internationally comparable time-series data on income distribution for a cross-section of countries. The second is theoretical ambiguity about how the distribution of income affects saving rates.3 Measurement problems and international comparability of saving data compound the difficulties of empirical work in this area.4 These concerns will be addressed below. The plan of the paper is as follows. Section 2 briefly discusses the theoretical and empirical background to the analysis. Section 3 discusses the income distribution data. Section 4 estimates the reduced-form relationship between private saving rates and income inequality. Section 5 evaluates explanations for inequality to affect private saving rates. Section 6 provides evidence with panel data, and Section 7 concludes.

The role of income distribution as a determinant of macroeconomic variables has received much attention in recent years. This paper empirically evaluates the effect of income inequality on private saving rates in a wide sample of countries. The goal is to address a puzzle — how to reconcile a negative empirical relationship between growth and inequality and the result of growth models that saving precedes growth with the long-standing argument in the development literature that inequality increases saving and, thus, growth. The empirical results indicate that countries with greater measured income inequality have higher private saving rates, controlling for standard saving determinants. The result is similar across industrial and developing country subsamples, and holds for cross-section and panel regressions. The results are weaker for the very poorest countries, which probably reflects measurement error in the data. The paper also empirically examined two hypotheses why higher inequality may increase private saving rates. The data provide no support for arguments that are based upon subsistence considerations, such as income inequality only affects saving behavior in rich countries. The data do support the hypothesis that the positive effect of income inequality on private saving depends upon measures of financial market development. The results show that income distribution only affects private saving rates in countries with low levels of financial market development and credit available to the private sector. This result provides evidence that the credit market imperfections may be a source of the positive income inequality and private saving rate link.